Weekend Brunch Thoughts

I saw her at brunch. I saw her and him and her and couldn't decide which I preferred. If I asked out one, I'd not ask out the rest, and I struggle with turning down options. So I ended up deciding on none and leaving with regret. 

But I do this to myself, so this isn't exactly a cry for sympathy. It's how I've been living for a while, chasing but not deciding, running, but not crossing the finish line. Pining for the end result isn't the same as making that desire known. 

And proposing, that act of courage, is where life happens. That moment when instead of looking at the lake, I bait and cast and wait. 

So what holds me back? I ask myself while eating ice cream in a living room, my dog on my chest. What holds me back is always the same: fear. That fear that dims my light, that doubt that inspires inaction. 

And I know there is no therapy that can bring me out of my shell. My therapist can't act for me. He can listen to me complain, sure. He can offer helpful mantras like "without fear there could be no courage," and these words help. But words must translate into action to be worth a damn. 

Perhaps this is where narratives are helpful. The stars decide my fate, so I know where I must go; God tells me to do this; this is my vocation, fate, destiny; if I can dream it, I can make it happen. "Believe," said Ted Lasso to his skeptical soccer team, and they lost the game; but, since they gave it their best, they didn't lose the game of life. 

Trying is the victory. Courage is the prize. Happiness dwells in virtue, not success. Fame, fortune, friendship, love... these are side courses to the main dish, action. Virtue is no means between extremes. With all due respect, fuck you, Aristotle. 

Virtue is the extreme. It's the highlight. It's the firework show at the end of a drunken Renaissance festival, where women glow with an evening sweat on a hot Houston night. Virtue is the end of life and the beginning. It's the dying hero's cool last words, "I did it."

So if I want to live, I must act. If life is nothing more than waiting for weekends where I can sleep in and escape, then I might as well end it now. If all I do is keep myself alive by means of food and drink and oxygen, I might as well be plant food. Self-awareness is merely the first step to the hardest step, the extreme step: virtue. 

Be extreme. Be virtuous. Be courageous. And you will be happy no matter the result. Not the fleeting sort of happiness that comes and goes with enough liquor or sex. But the happiness that comes from pride in ones actions. 

I tell myself all these nice things knowing full well I'm human and weak and lazy. I know I will not live up fully to my lofty ideals, but I will keep trying. And to be honest, I never admit my own successes as easily as my failures; and that's unhealthy too. But with every failure, I'll keep re-aligning, adjusting, and growing as the work in progress that I am.